the_yellow_dart

Mine's been completely filthy and replaced twice already.

I didn't know when I bought it, but my Cobalt has this too. I was a little confused when the opened up my glove box and pulled out an air filter.

I'm not saying that GM has saved more fuel than Toyota. The Prius has been such a sales success that this is clearly not the case. However, I still think it makes more sense to build a hybrid bus than a hybrid compact. Unfortunately, most people don't think the way I do, or the article above does, and so the Prius sells and the buses don't.

I learned a little about nuclear reactors in my time at Ontario Power Generation. I wasn't directly involved, so I'm not an expert. However, I do know enough to know that the old Russian design that Chernobyl was built on was badly flawed, as were some of the early American designs. Basically, they are unstable after a certain point - the coolant boils and nothing is left to cool the reactor. Cross that point and there is nothing left to do. The CANDU (Canadian) reactor is one of the best in the world. It can extract more power from the same fuel than any other reactor design - you can even run one on spent Russian or American fuel, and the South Koreans have actually done this - taken spent Chinese nuclear waste (Russian reactor design) and used it as fuel! It also doesn't have that instability point as did the early American and Russian designs - the coolant will never boil away from the rods. One idea that really intrigued me was from a private Chinese entrepreneur. He came up with a casing for fuel pellets that would only allow the radiation to escape if they were being bombarded. This means, basically, the fuel would work in a reactor, but as spend fuel it is almost completely inert. As a demo, he actually ran the reactor, then opened it and picked up one of the fuel balls. Plus, they are entirely scalable - since they don't need giant support buildings for cooling. The ball casing helps disperse the heat, and if the casing gets too hot it stops the reaction! Genius design. His demo reactor was about the size of a popcorn cart. If anyone knows the size of a modern nuclear plant, you know how amazing that is.

This is why GM's first hybrid was a bus, and the first commercial one a Silverado!! Makes so much more sense.

My coworker Andrew was driving and some other guy on the road thought Andrew cut him off. The other guy opened his door and leaned out of his car to spit on Andrew's car. He almost fell on the pavement in the process. They were going about 60 km/h. Man, that would have hurt!! ps. Fly, that's a really freaky time-warp effect on the front rim of that Nissan.

This is competing with the Yaris and Fit, right? Collaborating with Chery on this has BAD IDEA written all over it. I honestly thought the title was a joke when I first clicked on it.

Hyundai has a special program for this - A friend of the family had three different Santa Fes in a row, before finally trading for a Cobalt.

My computer tells me that my average is 7.0 to 7.1 L/100km (33 to 34 mpg) Best rural highway mileage (roughly at the 80 km/h limit) is 5.4 L/100km (44 mpg) Best freeway mileage (roughly at the 100 km/h limit is 5.7 L/100km (41 mpg) Typical highway with semi-aggressive passing (117 km/h) is 6.4 L/100 km (37 mpg) Worst rating I've ever seen, stuck in an in-city traffic jam: 16 L/100km (15 mpg)

To further demonstrate the Shadow abomination, I've drawn up a diagram. Yep, that's right, you could see the Dodge grille, it didn't line up, and it was a different colour. Nice, huh?

Remember - not that it makes as big a difference now, but those are Canadian dollars.

Waffles. Reminds me of a little clip called Tokyo Breakfast:

Friend just bought a car...

Either get under the car, see if you can find the inside of the bumper and push, or get something with suction like a plunger or floor tile lifter, stick in on the outside and pull.

So, I've seen a couple horrible things as of late, and I thought I'd share my pain. The first one was an Element with a "Hummer H0.5" badge. The second was a Shadow with a grille from a 95-02 Sunfire slapped on top of its own. The Shadow grille is pretty much vertical, with a horizontal bumper below it - So the Sunfire grille laid above both, making a 45 degree angle to each, with big triangular holes on both sides where the grille didn't line up with the rest of the car. Awful. NSX with red Honda badge. Why do people do this? You don't see anyone putting a Chevy badge on a Cadillac.

I drove to Florida in a 190,000 km Suburban. A friend of mine took the 700 km trip to northern Ontario in a 450,000 km '88 Audi 90 Quattro. That car is the definition of s**t-kicked, but it just keeps going.

Pretty sure that first word in the paint colour is MOTORWAY. Does that give anyone ideas?

What kind of financial advice?

This is actually one of the options I was looking at for after selling the car.

I should be getting a raise soon - my company gives out raises on your anniversary of hire. I'll have to see how big that is. Oh - and I forgot to mention in the post, there's a possibility that my next placement (since my job is consulting) will be a year and a half in France. So, if that happens I'll definitely sell the car, rather than just letting it depreciate. My company would pay for rent and some food, so it would be really awesome if that came through. Plus, hopefully I could find one of my friends to rent my place to.

I think I may have financially overextended myself a bit. It's sad really, when I think about it. I bought one of the cheapest condos I could find in Toronto. Half the loan is from my grandfather, at a better-than-bank rate. Half the loan is at 6% from the bank, which is fairly decent. My car is pretty basic too, I'm sure you'll all agree. Selling it and getting an older one wouldn't really solve my problems, since insurance is the main issue. Last month I had to pay my grandfather his interest for the year, and now I'm finding myself really in a bind. I'm going to have to roll up all my change and take it to the bank so that the money is there when GMAC goes to take their payment this month. I have a professional job that pays fairly average for the industry. I don't want to leave my job. I'm not sure a second job is the answer either, since that may distract me from my performance as a programmer. So, I'm left thinking, what gives? A professional can't afford a cheap car and cheap place to live? The only option that's looking viable is to sell the Cobalt. Any advice/opinions?

Gen Y, barely. 1983. The "Generation X" label was unintentionally invented by a favorite author of mine, Douglas Coupland. He wrote a book about that generation with the title "Generation X" and it stuck. It's surprising to me, since he's not that popular, especially outside of Canada. wiki genx

EAR SLICINGS?What did you do???

Umm... Cobalt: 4 Total: 4